Generally, in a wide-angle lens for a single lens reflex camera, a retrofocus lens construction has been used that includes a lens group having negative refractive power and a lens group having positive refractive power arranged in that order from the object side. The lens groups define an asymmetric arrangement about a stop used as an aperture stop in order to provide a desirably long back focal length of the retrofocus, wide-angle lens. Examples of such retrofocus, wide angle lenses are described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 2002-214526 and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application H07-261076.
Although each of the above-mentioned retrofocus, wide-angle lenses provides an adequate back focal length, the correction of aberration is at large field angles—especially the correction of lateral color—is difficult due to the asymmetric construction about the stop. Because digital cameras use detectors having light receiving characteristics that are different from that of photographic film, digital cameras require better correction of lateral color than that provided by the retrofocus, wide-angle lenses of the above-mentioned Japanese patent applications. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 2002-214526 describes using two lens elements of special low-dispersion glass in the positive lens group, but the lenses described in that Japanese application do not provide the desired correction of lateral color.